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Peaceful greetings, Pramudith! Thank you for contacting me! Congratulations on your books! I hope you are well and having a great week and a great life. Happy reading, writing, and everything else. Blessings!

Best wishes from Majenta

I remember the days when Oldman was strong he used to go to the bush almost everyday to set his snare for bush-meat. A monkey, grass cuter, porcupine, a python or at least a big rodent; he used to bring home when he comes back from the bush. Cleaning is my grand-mother`s speciality and other wives of my grand father used to support her. He had eleven wives, all were old friends of my grand mother who always said that without their support her life would not have been the same. The day he did not return from the bush was a full moon day and everyone was silent in houses except my grandmother and all of his wives were pleading the moon to send him back home from where he was hidden. My grandmother started boiling palm oil when the moon raised right on her head, it was midnight, and started whispering something that I learnt later that those were ‘phrases of power��, from the secret societies. Once oil started bubbling she added some herbs that one old woman had brought home once some of the villagers got to know that old man was missing in the bush. She took the pot out from the fire and took it to an open area in the front-yard of our cluster of mud-huts. The wives who were pleading the moon, sitting at doorsteps of their huts started moving towards my grandmother silently with very careful steps still looking at the moon. I was looking at them although I did not have a clue of what was going on, I felt a very strange feeling about old man. My instinct hinted me that we would not see him again. All wives made a circle around the pot and sat on knees, bending towards inside the pot as if the were trying to find something inside boiling oil. A silence that was mystic swallowed the surrounding when an old lady brought a rooster into cycle of women. They passed the rooster from hand to hand and finally to my grand mother who cut its neck and pour its blood into the oil pot. Then they kept on watching as if they were waiting for something to happen inside the pot. After a while other wives of old man started moving back to their mud-huts where there were several dozens of children waiting to for them. They walked in a melancholic way, they stepped as if they were lifeless, face looking down while no-one said anything. The pale moonlight added a dead rays to their slow movements giving a ghosty look.
After a while, men came with traditional lamps made out of palm and coconut leaves, and went into the bush while old lady and my grand mother were left near the pot.
I do not remember no one except my younger brother slept that night. Everyone was expecting something, something that they dared not to verbalize; something that they did not want to hear but they tried to suppress that with hope. Hope that old man would return, alive. The silence reigned between my grandmother and other wives of old man was a sign of a hope and despair, A silence of faith and incertitude. It was like a bridge between life and death.
“Whoop, whoop whoop.......�� an owl was desperately calling for a mate. Its whooping crossed the empty air, hit dumb Lofa mountains and echoed unheard. It whooped till the bats started returning from clearing skies with maiden rays of rising sun and stopped. My grandmother, returned to the hut, as if she gave up waiting. When a drop of hot tears from my mothers eyes fell on my hand, I heard the clapping sound of wings of the owl which was flying for his hideout after a long hopeless night of waiting for the answer from the beloved. Instead the light that the sun usually beings, villagers who returned from the bush with no news about the old man, not only our huts, but the whole village felt as if it was the beginning of a long dark time.
“We found nothing�� One said loud.
“We will go in again, old man should be somewhere.�� Another raised his voice with a hope.
“He knew all wild animals, he should be safe somewhere.�� It was my mother who talked after a long silence.
“Devils and witches are dominating the night and full moon.�� My grandmothers voice followed my mothers, as if she was in denial of what she heard from my mother.
Everyone said that my mother and grandmother could not live in the same space. They had disagreements that often ended up with a quarrel that the old man had to intervene however even he could not resolve them but stop the violence whenever irrupted. But for sure, both of them loved the old man, and respected him. Whenever he says something they both listened to him. Whenever he was not at home, the huts were never at peace. After each fight my mother used to come to my father and complain that he took never saw that grandmother was wrong. Then my father used to beat her; sometimes when I was in her hand. That was the most scary thing I had seen in my childhood. One day he beat her till she fell down and kicked her back many times ­it was merely because her verbal aggression.
“Last night the dogs where baking.......plenty.�� it was another man from our little village. Tamba who was famous for his talkativeness but he had gained a fame for his unbelievable ability in forecasting too. Two days before my uncle was killed by a black mamba bite, he had visited him and had told him to avoid the bush for one full moon. My uncle did not want to listen to him but my grandmother was worrying about what he told and pleading him to not to go to the bush. The day he was brought home still and cold, my grandmother collapse d like a banana tree that could not bare the weight of the fruits. She said only one thing. “Tamba you are a witch, you knew this.�� His presence at the scene heightened the level of anxiety of everyone who was there as many did not denied that belief that he was a witch, although non of them dared to spell it out. Nonetheless no-one commented on what he said; probably because non of them wanted to accept what they were already feeling.
“Ooo....... he had left this on the log, I knew that it was the reason.�� Kumba came running from her hut. She was the youngest wife of old man. She was not more than fifteen years - I was not pretty sure about her exact age as we did not use christian calendar those days, however she was younger than most of the children and grand children of the old man. He loved to stay most of the nights in her hut and the night before he disappeared in the bush he had been with Kumba.
Old man always used to wear a charm for protection since the time of I know. He told that it was given by his grandfather; a well renounced voodoo practitioner from Sierra-Leone who once kept a tribal leader immobile for seven days.
“Not a single pea flying over his head.�� told old man one day while relating on one story about his childhood. He always talked about his grand father whom he used to call Broh with a fear mixed with respect. He had an extremely profound faith in the charm that had been passed to him from Broh; everyone else also believed that the charm was the sole protection that kept old man safe in the bush.
Seeing what Kumba was holding in her hand, my grandmother nearly fainted; my mother nearly dropped my sister from her hand; other wives of old man started crying loud and my grandmother who was on the ground started rolling and eating the soil as if there would only be soil for us to feed on anymore. Amid of unprecedented flood of emotions, the old woman who brought the rooster approached my grand mother, her tone was firm.
“Let`s go to the river!�� it sounded more like an order than a request.
“I saw my grandmother`s face looking up at the old woman; her tearful eyes were shining in the moonlight and she was trying to tell something that he mouth would not want to turn into words��
Under the pale moonlight she moved with other ladies towards the river and some men followed them. My mother was watching till the lights of the palm-leave candles disappeared into the bush and started sobbing.

Pramudith D Rupasinghe

Footprints in Obscurity: A Living Story

Pramudith D Rupasinghe